The Night of Buzzing, or Is It Ever Too Late for a Cuppa?
by Aliada
Summary: The clock hit 3 am, yet no one seemed to notice. The voices rose and fell, creating a colorful background for the clinking of cups and promising them a splendid tea party.


John woke up. Only three words, but for John it was by no means quick. He was drifting away, clinging to the blank, warm space in his head that sheltered him from the annoying buzzing.

 _Must be the bees_ , John thought and shut his eyes tight.

 _Let Sherlock deal with it._ The eyes didn't want to shut back, so John put a palm over them. His hand made a moan of protest – or was it him? He wasn't sure.

The buzzing kept torturing his ears.

This time, the moaning was definitely coming from John's mouth. He considered smothering himself with a pillow but that meant making his head uncomfortable.

And that was enough of un-bloody-comfortable for today.

John shot upright and glanced at the clock. Then rubbed his burning eyes and glanced again. The eyes showed him the same thing.

John hoped they were mistaken.

The buzzing got louder.

The memory threw him a raw, water-stained image of Sherlock babbling about his genius deductions. If John was completely honest with himself, he wasn't even sure those were deductions.

 _"Look, isn't it nice, John? Let's live here. And keep the bees."_

 _"John?"_

John winced and thought about using the pillow once again. On Sherlock this time.

Oh Sherlock who of course _wasn't_ sleeping.

Well, at least he now knew where this bees business was coming from. Not going mad seemed like nice news. Didn't it?

Half a minute later John realized that this calming thing wasn't working for him and he needed to find another option. Like _right now_.

He made his steps deliberately heavy. Not that he expected Sherlock to get scared and stop that insanity – he never did – but it made John feel a bit better. A _great_ bit better, as a matter of fact.

John flew into the kitchen and froze. There was a smell. Not the smell of something being decomposed or incinerated, but another kind of smell. A nice yeasty smell.

"What the hell…" John didn't get to finish his sentence because Sherlock made some weird noise of his own and waved a hand at him without as much as a look.

Waved. At. Him.

While efficiently blocking the view to whatever he has been doing – which, John grimly realized, was the thing that annoyed him most.

"An experiment, John! Don't look."

John made a husky noise with his throat and regretted not paying attention to his breathing pattern before he faced the middle-of-the-night Sherlock.

Sherlock hummed and huffed at something – all in a row. The next sound was only partly recognizable, and John firmly told himself to do something about it, as in _now_.

"Ok, Sherlock. I believe we have to have a discussion."

"I'm sorry, John. But I'm already having to have something else."

John told himself that he honestly tried but it didn't seem to be much of a consolation.

"What you _have_ to do, Sherlock, is to explain to me what the hell is going on!"

Sherlock shrugged and John felt like he wasn't so far from huffing himself which, judging by his experience, never ended well. Sherlock didn't seem aware of that, though.

"Well, I didn't start this "have-have" nonsense. Couldn't hurt to phrase it differently, John."

John lost the count of times he opened his mouth and closed it again. It couldn't have been healthy. _Obviously._ John winced on the inside and tried to throw the word out of his mind. It didn't want to go, bearing a maddening resemblance to its owner.

 _Not the 'owner', John. People don't own words, I'll have you know._

Okay. Now he was arguing with one more Sherlock in his head.

"Are you serious, Sherlock?"

"Who are you talking to?"

Sherlock opened some boxes and took a spoon, still managing to block the view. John could bet the stuff was white. On the bright side, it'd look nicely on Sherlock's ridiculously expensive jacket he didn't bother to take off. _Can't come too soon,_ John thought grimly.

Sherlock began to stir. It sounded like he was doing that _on purpose_.

Yeah. Who was he even talking to?

"I know you have 'another Sherlock' in your head. Don't try to hide it."

John cleared his throat feeling a bit uncomfortable. Okay, _a lot_.

"Really – why should I? I've got to be _very proud_."

He hoped he made his tone foreboding enough for Sherlock to drop the subject.

Sherlock stirred more quickly.

"Okay. Spill. You're dying to tell me about it and I'm dying to hear."

The banging was as much annoying as buzzing, John discovered.

"You slept."

"Okay."

He supposed he did. In some long gone past.

"And I watched."

John knew he wasn't going to like it.

"Does it have anything to do with the buzzing thing?"

Sherlock's shoulders tensed a little, and John congratulated himself with hitting the right spot.

"You'd better go to sleep, John, you're obviously having difficulties with telling a dream from the reality."

John made a dangerously sounding step. Thankfully, he advanced those a while ago.

Sherlock pressed himself against the counter and leaned forward for a bit.

"The bees, Sherlock. I'm talking about bees – ones that are in my damn head along with 'another you'. Do you know what I heard when I woke up? No thumping, no shooting, no jumping, only that damn _buzzing_. Do you see my point?"

"There never was any jumping!"

John made his step deliberately soft. Sherlock flinched slightly still not turning around.

"Did you mess with my head?"

"It was an experiment. And you were willing to participate! You said so yourself!"

"I was asleep, Sherlock."

"That's exactly the point! I think you must have a better version of yourself in there somewhere."

"Which comes out when I'm asleep?"

"Yes."

"A bit not good."

John heard Sherlock swallow and realized that this insistent banging that ended half a minute ago wasn't really so bad.

Sherlock went ridiculously still and John totally blamed the mellow feeling in his stomach on eating too much dinner.

"Okay, Sherlock. I'm going to bed now. To sleep. Unsupervised. Undeduced. And any other 'un' you can come up with. Is that clear?"

Sherlock mumbled something – hopefully agreeable. John was really too exhausted to care. At least, there was no tea request this time, or even more ridiculous tea-with-non-existent-milk-request.

Anyway, John had only one request on his mind right now – one that included a thorough pillow-clinging.

* * *

Now it was even less fun than before. It was the second thought to come. The first one didn't seem to have an analogue in English language. But John was sure that whatever was bothering him got the message.

"John, get up!"

Or _whoever_.

"Seriously, Sherlock?"

"I'd not be here if it wasn't."

Of course. John moaned and tried to open his eyes which were even more reluctant than before. To hell with that!

"Say what you want and go away"

John wasn't a deduction genius but even he could tell that something didn't go the way it was supposed to – at least if those weird noises were anything to go by.

"Sherlock!"

"Aren't you going to open your eyes?"

John growled and turned on the light. Better to deal with it fast, maybe this way it'd be easier not to strangle Sherlock. They still had the rent to pay after all.

The strong scent of black tea made his mouth water. John narrowed his eyes so they would not hurt so much and saw a cup. A clean one. He smelled it cautiously and took a sip.

"Okay, what is it, Sherlock? And what is it going to do to me?"

Sherlock looked outrageously offended at that.

"It's tea, John. A cup of tea."

"Yeah, it sure smells and looks like it."

" _Like it?_ What else could it be? And why did you even drink it if you thought it wasn't tea?"

John huffed and brought the cup to his lips once again – this time to hide the inappropriate and rather weird chuckle that threatened to escape him.

Damn it. He hoped it wasn't some super-fast drug. John looked back at the frowning Sherlock and tried to make a similar frown. By the look in grey eyes, it wasn't working very well.

Okay, the truth was that he just was so bloody thirsty that he'd drink anything at all. But Sherlock definitely didn't need to know that.

"And what is that?"

"Buns."

"Excuse me?"

"Those are buns, John. Not poisonous as well, in case you wondered."

The buns were sprinkled with powdered sugar. John licked it carefully, ridiculously relieved when his mouth filled with the sweet taste. He caught Sherlock's inquiring gaze and hid his smile behind the cup.

"Yeah, it's better than the last time. Thank you."

 _Do you think it was okay, Sherlock? Drugging me and locking me in the lab? Let me tell you something – It wasn't! And I'm not going to bloody pretend otherwise._

 _I doubt you could…_

 _It was said under the breath and in a clearly sullen tone which was the usual telltale sign of 'let-it-go-before –he-works-himself-into-another-tantrum' kind of thing. Yet now John was too annoyed for that to work, 'shut-up-or-else' kind of annoyed._

 _"Well, excuse me if my skills aren't up to your standards. I'm just keeping us from starving, freezing – oh, and don't forget getting killed. Otherwise I'm pretty much useless._

Sherlock eyed him, almost shy.

"Really?"

"Really what?"

"Really good?"

This time surpassing a chuckle was a bit more difficult.

"I didn't say it was good."

Sherlock frowned and stared at the floor.

"Well, I told you I was never good at pretending, didn't I?"

"It was me who said that."

John let out the chuckle he's been holding and took one more bite.

"It's not just good, Sherlock – it's _delicious_. Thought you'd figure that out."

Sherlock has taken his eyes off the floor in a sharp, almost desperate motion.

"Uhm…uh… I mean, thank you, John."

John might not be very good at pretending, but the 'clearing throat' trick… he was quite familiar with that one. Apparently, so was Sherlock.

Silence wrapped them into a tight embrace. John kept on chewing slowly and Sherlock kept on watching him.

John finished the first bun and took the second one.

"And this thing, this pretense thing. I didn't mean… I mean…"

"Thank you?"

"Yes."

"You're welcome."

One awkward moment later, John felt corners of his lips rise again. Sherlock's weren't far behind.

"Now stop apologizing and have tea with me."

Sherlock blinked at him staring with uncertainty at John's cup. The only cup.

 _And if this cup you're growing mould in was the only cup on the planet?_

 _Then we'd have to do without tea, John. I thought it was obvious._

 _Okay, Then I will just go have some water, shall I?_

 _Wise words at last._

"All the other cups are… otherwise occupied."

"Dare I suggest with what?"

"Better not."

John nodded. He should've expected this answer. Fortunately, they had yet to run out of cups for good. Or unfortunately, depending on how to look at it. As far as he knew Sherlock's views on the matter were restricted to occasional sulking on the couch mixed with unexpected bursts of sudden activity when all the cups were urgently becoming 'occupied'. John didn't know which of two evils was more preferable.

He also wasn't sure if it was wise to reveal the existence of the 'secret cup'. Was it still secret, though? Knowing Sherlock, he'd not put money on it.

Sherlock's eyes widened with surprise, and John thought that risk wasn't such a bad thing sometimes.

"Come on, this is really good. Make yourself one."

"Hiding cups? Really, John? I believed you were above that."

"Shut up and go put the kettle on."

"But look at it, John! This cup has the perfect surface for…"

"Don't even think about it. I mean it, Sherlock. This cup would remain in its present condition even if I have to move it every damn day."

The clock hit 3 am, yet no one seemed to notice. The voices rose and fell, creating a colorful background for the clinking of cups and promising them a splendid tea party.


End file.
